Country music legend Lee Greenwood had a few words of sage advice for singer Maren Morris, who made waves last month for making a big show of “quitting” country music because it is too right-wing for her tastes.
Morris first leaped into the news in March when she was seen proudly telling fans that she takes her 2-year-old son to drag queen shows and then demanding that the state of Tennessee arrest her for doing so.
The Texas-born B-lister’s rampage was seen onstage during an LGBT-centric concert called “Love Rising.” Morris, who lives in Nashville, was reacting to a law passed in Tennessee that bans children from attending sexualized drag shows.
A few months later, she was again pushing a left-wing narrative when she attacked Tucker Carlson as she stood onstage while accepting an award from the radical gay group GLAAD.
By September, Morris was blasting hitmaker Jason Aldean for his popular song, “Try That in a Small Town.”
So, it probably wasn’t a big shock that, after finding little support for her leftism among country music fans, she announced that she was leaving country music forever.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times published Sept. 15, the singer said she no longer has an affinity for country music.
“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display,” Morris told the paper. “They were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music.”
Few fans will miss Morris as she was a minor figure on the country music scene, but they will for sure not miss her after she called them all “misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic.”
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Greenwood found himself exasperated by her attacks on his music and his country.
“Another day, another attack on country music, patriotism and Donald Trump,” he wrote in an Op-Ed published by Fox News on Sunday.
The country legend, best known for singing “God Bless the USA,” noted that Morris “claims that country music is having an ‘existential crisis’ by tying itself so closely to patriotism, America and freedom.”
“However, that’s precisely what country music is all about!” wrote Greenwood, who boldly stood up to support Aldean when he was under fire.
“To suggest that country music is ‘too patriotic’ is to not understand country music at all. It’s in our very name: country music. Our music is written for love of our country, our heart for America,” he explained.
“Because country music is so closely tied to the heartbeat of America, it also happens to reflect what’s happening across the country at the very moment,” Greenwood wrote. “As a result, it’s not that politics has infiltrated country music, it’s quite the opposite — music ends up reflecting the very conversations happening across the country today.”
After revealing how his grandparents struggled to maintain their farm during then-President Jimmy Carter’s grain embargo of the 1970s and discussing how politics negatively impacted so many Americans, he noted that these are the things that lie at the heart of country music.
“These are the visuals country music bestows on America — stories of true grit, and patriotic stories that are a reflection of what’s truly happening in the USA today,” Greenwood wrote.
He then blasted the left-wingers who don’t understand the music.
“For liberal artists to despise a genre of music due to its lyrics is to despise what is happening across America today,” Greenwood wrote. “Placing the blame on former President Donald Trump or any other political group is misguided, as it’s not that politics has infiltrated the music — it’s simply that music reflects what is happening in the country.”
“Political trends will change with the winds, but the core of country music remains: love of country, love of freedom, love of America,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that, and that’s not going to change any time soon.”
In conclusion, Greenwood had some advice for his liberal counterpart.
“Morris would be wiser to stay in country music, where she could continue the conversation and present her interpretation of what it means to be American today,” he wrote.
“However, suggesting that individual country music artists (or the entire genre of country music!) ought to be ‘canceled’ because you don’t like the lyrics is a slippery slope to censorship, free expression, and is out of line with the values of hard work, freedom, and grit that have made country music so great to this day,” Greenwood said.
Further embracing her new role as a quitter, Morris announced this month that she has put the kibosh on one more part of her life. After she exited the door of country music, she filed for divorce from country music singer and songwriter Ryan Hurd, her husband of five years and the father of her son.
One might think he is better off without her. And so is country music.
